Small fishers in Negros Island Region (NIR) and Western Visayas, aided by the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM)-Negros Office, continue to press their efforts to reduce illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing and oppose black sand mining in various affected and threatened localities.
In a statement, leaders of the Panay-Negros-Guimaras Crab Fishers Alliance (PANEG-CA) said they continue to call on the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources-Negros Island Region (BFAR-NIR) and their various provincial governments and coastal local government units (LGUs) to work fast to reduce IUU fishing.
They are also campaigning against black sand mining and urged immediate relief and reform measures in response to the current United States ban on Philippine blue swimming crabs (BSC) exports, a big bulk of which come from the coastal areas of E.B. Magalona and Manapla in north Negros and Ajuy and Concepcion in north Iloilo.
Negros and Iloilo reportedly supply more than 80 percent of the country’s BSC exports to the US.
PANEG-CA chair Gerry Bedoya said they have already submitted to BFAR-NIR their relevant resolutions and advocacy papers.
Bedoya said they oppose IUU fishing and the illegal catching and selling of berried and juvenile blue crabs, which continue to happen in many areas of the two regions.
He said they have attended several public hearings on the proposed ordinances on commercial fishing and on the sustainability of BSC.
Bedoya said they oppose the intrusion of commercial fishing into the 15-kilometer municipal waters, citing its adverse effects to small fishers’ well-being and that of coastal and marine ecosystems.
Eduardo Espinosa, another PANEG-CA leader, said they are also against the pending 17 big coastal and offshore mining projects in Negros and Panay, which he said will endanger if not destroy the critical crabs and fish habitats.
Crabs are sea bottom dwellers and stay in such shallow areas where the small mangroves, sea grasses, and corals are also based.
PRRM-Negros area manager Edwin Balajadia said that aside from exhorting for government intervention, the small fisher leaders are campaigning for democratic and sustainable fisheries towards acquiring greater voice in fisheries governance through the local fisheries and aquatic resources management councils.
He also called on other basic sectors of small farmers, rural workers, and civil society in Negros and the regions to push greater unities so that they could be effective in their engagements with the national and regional agencies and LGUs. ||
